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Mar. 14th, 2003 01:41 amThis name will probably mean nothing to any of you. But a good man died on March 8. C. Paul Letts was 91. When I first met him, he was already 70. He always wanted to be called C. Paul, not Mr. Letts. He was the rifle range instructor at the Boy Scout camp I went to. He had a rather graphic way of demonstrating rifle safety: he'd had a finger shot off many years before (middle, left hand, not even a stump remained), and used the scar to illustrate the hazards of guns. He'd talk about how doctors told him that in addition to losing one finger, likely his index finger would never work again, but clearly it did. He said that he had to get it back, because it was his nose-picking finger.
He also was the best teller of horror stories that I've ever known. The stories were familiar classics; the one I remember best was his rendition of "The Monkey's Paw". Clearly he'd had practice telling the stories; he knew the timing and all the subtle things that words alone can't convey. He made it sound like he'd actually experienced the story, and was now recounting something from his own past.
My troop invited him to our campsite for dinner on occasion (other troops did as well); he'd arrive, eat, and we'd talk. Later, the real reason for inviting him came up, and he'd oblige by telling a story or two -- guaranteed to keep us up afterward wondering about all those "harmless" noises in the trees. At the weekly whole-camp campfire, always on the Friday before we packed out to go home, he'd tell a story for the whole camp, a few dozen scout troops. He always introduced himself as the newest, most junior member of the camp staff. He needed no microphone; he projected just fine.
I last saw him in 1985; he would have been 74 then. He'd been a fixture at that camp, probably for longer than most of the other staff had been alive.
My parents mailed me two obituaries from the local papers in Michigan. They arrived today. The obituaries don't say, but I'd like to think that he was still running the rifle range and telling his stories (without a microphone) last year, when he was 90. I'm sorry to say that before today I probably hadn't thought about him in several years.
C. Paul, you are remembered. C. Paul, you are missed.
He also was the best teller of horror stories that I've ever known. The stories were familiar classics; the one I remember best was his rendition of "The Monkey's Paw". Clearly he'd had practice telling the stories; he knew the timing and all the subtle things that words alone can't convey. He made it sound like he'd actually experienced the story, and was now recounting something from his own past.
My troop invited him to our campsite for dinner on occasion (other troops did as well); he'd arrive, eat, and we'd talk. Later, the real reason for inviting him came up, and he'd oblige by telling a story or two -- guaranteed to keep us up afterward wondering about all those "harmless" noises in the trees. At the weekly whole-camp campfire, always on the Friday before we packed out to go home, he'd tell a story for the whole camp, a few dozen scout troops. He always introduced himself as the newest, most junior member of the camp staff. He needed no microphone; he projected just fine.
I last saw him in 1985; he would have been 74 then. He'd been a fixture at that camp, probably for longer than most of the other staff had been alive.
My parents mailed me two obituaries from the local papers in Michigan. They arrived today. The obituaries don't say, but I'd like to think that he was still running the rifle range and telling his stories (without a microphone) last year, when he was 90. I'm sorry to say that before today I probably hadn't thought about him in several years.
C. Paul, you are remembered. C. Paul, you are missed.
